Ukraine's leading English-language newspaper since 1995

Georgia's war with Russia over the separatist enclave of South Ossetia is bad news for Ukraine in three ways.

If Georgia loses the conflict with Russia, or is forced into a humiliating withdrawal from South Ossetia, the Mikhail Saakashvili regime could be overthrown and replaced by a pro-Russian regime. Pro-Russian Georgian leaders (implicated in assassination attempts on former President

Shevardnadze) are waiting in Moscow for such an opportunity to return. The removal of Saakashvili would be a personal blow to President Viktor Yushchenko.

The removal of the Saakashvili regime would destroy the already fragile GUAM regional group. Uzbekistan left it in 2005 and Moldova led by a Communist president willing to negotiate deals with Russia over another separatist enclave - Trans-Dniestr - has become a neutral and passive member of GUAM. A pro-Russian Georgian regime would not remain in GUAM and it would therefore collapse, demolishing plans unveiled at a June Kyiv summit for an energy corridor from Azerbaijan to Ukraine and Central-Eastern Europe.

The most important impact of the conflict would be to postpone indefinetly Ukraine and Georgia¹s plans to join NATO. NATO baulked at its April Bucharest summit from inviting both countries into Membership Action Plans (MAP¹s), following strong German and French hostility, but did instead offer the prospect of future membership. In December NATO Foreign Ministers are set to review Georgia and Ukraine¹s ³progress² towards fulfilling hazy and confusing criteria.

With political instability in the orange coalition set to deepen as the presidential elections loom (where Yushchenko sees Yulia Tymoshenko as his main protagonist) and Georgia at war with Russia over South Ossetia (and maybe Abkhazia) NATO Foreign Ministers will not recommend that NATO extend invitations to Ukraine and Georgia to enter MAP¹s.

The US (and maybe NATO) will strongly back Georgia in its conflict, although George W Bush is a lame duck president and the US in the midst itself of regime change. The biggest disappointment - as always - will be the EU and the OSCE which will be pathetically inept, passive and russophile in their policy proposals.